


do you even lift, bro?

by johnnys



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: I Don't Even Know, M/M, Some mature content, did i mention wooyoung, i can't write anything without woosan, i lowkey biased wooyoung this week, jongho is literally a gym bunny, oh and woosang are best friends, wooyoung is adorable, yeosang has a muscle kink, yeosang hates the gym with a passion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 03:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21229169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/johnnys/pseuds/johnnys
Summary: yeosang can't imagine anything worse than paying for a gym membership. but when he meets muscle bunny jongho, even feigning an interest in exercising doesn't seem impossible, not if it means he can get jongho to be his personal trainer.(a jongsang one-shot to fill the archive.)





	do you even lift, bro?

**Author's Note:**

> this is a request i wrote on wp and i liked it so much it ended up being like over 4k words lmao.  
enjoy! i listened to day6's album 'entropy' while writing this.

in the eyes of kang yeosang, exercising is a waste of time. as he often says to his best friend jung wooyoung, _our lives are too short to be wasting them sweating in the gym_. wooyoung pretends to agree with him, when in reality he actually likes to work out too. (although he's managed to convince yeosang that his yoga classes don't really count.)

so it's something of a surprise when yeosang starts going to the gym.

it all starts on that fateful day in october, when wooyoung and yeosang are sitting in the university library, pretending to study. except they're not even pretending. wooyoung's saying something that yeosang isn't listening to: he's too busy staring at the guys studying a few tables away.

"so, i ended up thinking... i kind of like the attention, really, so maybe i should just let him flirt with me-- yeosang, are you even listening?"

yeosang isn't listening. he's watching two guys arm wrestle - a shorter guy with big arms going against a much larger dude with a shock of bright red hair. unsurprisingly, with those biceps, the shorter guy appears to be winning.

"what are you even..." wooyoung trails off and cranes his neck to get a look at whatever yeosang is so engrossed in. "oh, okay, fair enough."

they both watch for the last few moments of the battle, until the shorter guy ultimately wins and the taller guy's face hits the desk in shame.

"you shouldn't have challenged him, mingi," laughs a third guy, whose dark roots have so obviously grown back into his bleach-blonde hair. "we all know how jongho can break apples with his bare hands."

"stop, yunho, you're making me blush," jokes the winner of the arm wrestle as he stands up. "alright, well, i'm gonna hit the gym. i'll catch you guys later."

"geez, he never misses a day," red-haired mingi sighs in defeat.

"yeah, that's why he beat you so easily," yunho taunts.

they wave jongho out of the library, and when he's out of sight yeosang finally turns back to wooyoung.

"did you see his arms?" he blurts. "he looks like he could flip a table. or a bus."

wooyoung just rolls his eyes and goes back to lining up his highlighters in colour order. "if you want arms like that, you've practically got to live in the gym," he remarks, "not that you'd ever be interested. now, are you going to listen to my problems or not?"

yeosang flops onto the desk, cheek resting against his unopened textbooks. "not," he says simply.

(and wooyoung throws a pen at his head because yeosang never listens to him, and he couldn't care less about wooyoung's ongoing crisis at the yoga class. but sure, it's fine. wooyoung definitely doesn't care that no one will listen to him talk. not in the slighest.)

⌛

later that week, in their shared dorm room, wooyoung catches yeosang in another suspicious act - only this time, it's even more uncharacteristic.

"what _are_ you looking at?"

yeosang slams the laptop shut and squirms away from wooyoung's prying eyes. "nothing," he answers quickly, averting his gaze.

"that's such a lie, give that here," wooyoung demands. fresh out of the shower, he clambers onto yeosang's bed in his purple pajamas, flicking his wet blonde hair all over his friend as he struggles to grab the laptop from him.

"go away!" yeosang whines, holding the precious laptop close to his chest. "you're invading my privacy!"

wooyoung eventually gains possession of the laptop however, and pries open the screen to cast his eyes over yeosang's google searches. it opens to a page full of gymwear, leggings and more leggings as far as you can scroll. "is this _gymshark_?" he asks.

"no!" yeosang insists, "give it back..."

"why are you scrolling through _gymshark_?" wooyoung frowns. "you hate going to the gym. and _gymshark_ is kind of expensive..."

"i accidentally clicked on it," yeosang explains lamely.

"you accidentally clicked on the... _fourteenth_ page of workout leggings?"

"...yep." yeosang hides his face in his hands. it's clearly a lie, but he's already dug a hole for himself now.

wooyoung's sniggering at yeosang's embarrassment, but he's started scrolling through the website himself, genuinely interested in some of the products. "okay, those leggings are sick," he mutters. "damn, i could really use a new pair for yoga..."

"give me my laptop back!" yeosang wrestles the laptop back and somehow manages to push wooyoung off his bed and onto the floor. "i just want some comfortable clothes for _being lazy_, okay? it's got nothing to do with me going to the gym."

"going to the gym?" wooyoung repeats, raising his eyebrows in such a way that makes yeosang slightly terrified, "i never mentioned anything about you potentially wanting to go to the gym."

yeosang hesitates, mouth gaping open. he's certain that there's a phrase that goes '_if you're in a hole, stop digging_' and he's pretty sure that applies to his exact situation right now. "uh... yeah. well, neither did i," he says shortly.

"okay..." wooyoung picks himself up off the floor and stretches in that dumb way those yoga people do, and crosses the room to his side of the dorm. he gives yeosang one final _weirded-out_ look and starts blow-drying his hair.

_phew. he totally bought it. _yeosang eyes his best friend with a shifty gaze.

"if you want to stop being a couch potato though, you should just come to yoga with me," wooyoung offers.

yeosang nearly chokes on his own spit. "go to yoga with you? i'd rather stick pins in my eyes."

"aw, why?" wooyoung turns around, switching off his blow-dryer. "it'd be fun! and maybe you could get more flexible."

"i'm flexible enough as it is, thanks," yeosang snorts. "i can't imagine anything worse than watching you flirt with that lovesick excuse of a man twice a week."

"i don't flirt with him," wooyoung objects, "_he_ flirts with _me_."

"and you flirt back." yeosang rolls his eyes and pretends to gag.

"only sometimes!" wooyoung huffs and looks back at the mirror, blow-dryer still idle in one hand. "besides, you can't call him that when you've only met him once."

"once was enough exposure to last a lifetime," yeosang drawls. "don't try and pretend you don't flirt with him. the way you cling to each other is enough to make even an lgbtq+ ally vomit in their mouth a little bit."

"oh, shut up," wooyoung says, "get back to me when you're actually dating someone." he throws a pillow at yeosang's head and goes back to drying his hair. (he would've thrown the blow-dryer if it wasn't plugged into the wall.)

so yeosang burrows himself under the blankets and continues his gymwear search, placing way too many products in his basket and clicking check-out without anywhere near enough consideration. it's too much money to even think about, and it's all going to some overpriced athleisure sites.

and then there's the gym membership to pay for. _fuck this._

⌛

okay, going to the gym is a bad idea. no, a terrible idea, in fact. yeosang doesn't know why people do it - they must all be insane. it's such a waste of time and money which could be better spent on a netflix subscription and a years worth of extra spicy doritos.

and yeosang has determined this all within his five and a half minute experience of the university gym.

(the only good part about all of this is that the workout clothes he bought are comfortable as hell, and he's pretty sure they make his ass look good. so that's something.)

the gym is a terrifying place to be. why are there so many people... working out? _vigorously?_ everywhere yeosang turns, there's another gym bunny waiting to jump out at him, and all the rippling muscles in the world are not enough to make him stay in this cursed place any longer--

spoke too soon.

"mingi, stop whining and start lifting," says a voice next to one of the bench presses. "you're the one who begged me to, and i quote, '_teach you the way_'."

"i _know_," red-haired mingi whines, "but i didn't think it would be this hard..."

in less than a second, yeosang's already honed in on the conversation. that cute guy with the big arms is here - just like he wanted. that was only one hundred percent of the reason he decided to come to the gym in the first place. he quickly signs in with the receptionist (who throws him a very dubious look) and makes his way over, as casually as possible, to the back of the gym.

"can you stop complaining already?" yunho calls from the cross-trainer, laughing wickedly at mingi's suffering.

"yeah, you've literally only done one bench press," jongho points out. he's standing over the red-head with his arms crossed over his chest, unintentionally showing off his biceps to the world (and to yeosang, who is staring).

having no clue where to start when it comes to the gym, yeosang jumps on two cross-trainers down from yunho, leaving an awkward gap in the middle. he copies what he's doing, eyes still drawn to jongho on the other side of the room, and soon finds himself getting tired.

"you waiting to use the bench press or something?" yunho's talking to him now, following his gaze to his friends over by the weights.

"maybe," yeosang blurts out defensively, which is the next in his neverending series of mistakes.

"hey, mingi! other people want to use the equipment, so just give up already."

"oh, no, no, no, really, it's okay," yeosang rambles, slowing down to a stop on the cross-trainer to scramble to take back his last response.

"don't worry," yunho assures him, "mingi might look like he could step on you, but he's actually about as intimidating as an ant. go on over!"

before he can even object, yunho is _helpfully_ dragging him over to the bench press where mingi is very much giving up. though his proximity to muscle bunny jongho is increasing, yeosang has decided that this is probably going to be the worst moment of his life. (and he's had a lot of worst moments, so this really tops everything.)

"come on, mingi, i think you're done for the day," yunho says to his friend, who looks as if he might pass out.

"can we get iced coffee?" mingi winces and accepts yunho's help as they both start to leave for the changing room.

"only if you're paying," yunho grins.

"i'll see you guys later then!" jongho laughs, watching mingi stumble out of the gym after the most exhausting work out of his life. with a sigh, jongho turns back to yeosang, who is still eyeing the bench press with imminent fear. "you need a hand with that?" jongho asks.

"pfft, no," yeosang replies before he can stop himself. "i totally know what i'm doing."

"okay..." there's a small smile playing on jongho's lips, but he keeps yeosang's facade going for a little longer. "you sure?"

"yeah," yeosang says firmly, though he doesn't move any closer to the bench press. "do you even lift, bro?"

_i can't believe i just said that. time to die._

jongho fights back another laugh, arms still crossed over his chest. yeosang's eyes glide over those shoulders that are exposed by the tank top jongho wears, and for a moment he forgets how much of a total idiot he's being. "well, if you're sure, i'll leave you to it then," jongho tells him.

"wait!" yeosang yelps, and jongho looks back at him expectantly.

at that exact moment, the yoga class that takes place in another room in the building finishes up, and the class walk out through the gym, chatting and laughing along the way. yeosang's eyes go wide as he spots wooyoung's head of blonde curls amongst the crowd, and his stomach lurches. wooyoung seems oblivious, leaning into the arm that his yoga buddy has thrown around his shoulders, but yeosang is panicking.

as a last ditch effort to hide, yeosang grabs two fistfuls of jongho's tank top and pulls him close, ducking down so his cheek is pressed against jongho's chest. he waits for the yoga class to pass, hardly daring to breathe.

"you... okay?" jongho's smirking by the time yeosang finally straightens up to peer over his shoulder.

"hm? oh, yeah, i'm... fine." yeosang swallows his embarrassment, unaware of the fact that his hands are still all over jongho's well-built chest.

jongho reaches up to grab yeosang's hands and slowly moves them down his abdomen, maintaining the pressure. a look of surprise flickers across yeosang's face, but he doesn't pull away. he slowly exhales as his fingers rake down jongho's abs, wondering how on earth he managed to get himself into this situation.

"working out is kind of my thing," jongho murmurs, meeting yeosang's eyes. his hands stop moving when they reach the top of his shorts, and yeosang's face is bright red. "so i can tell you might need a little help getting started. right?"

yeosang snatches his hands away and stares at the floor. after a beat, he gives a shallow nod.

⌛

and that's how it all starts - yeosang's daily torture sessions in the university gym, where he pretends to be interested in working out just so jongho can act as his personal trainer. it's pretty much the definition of bittersweet, because having so much attention from jongho is liberating, but the exercise is slowly killing him inside. and to make matters worse, wooyoung starts questioning where he goes every day after class, and yeosang has to come up with bullshit excuse after bullshit excuse to lie through his teeth about it.

he barely makes it through two weeks before it's confession time.

"another fifty?" jongho suggests with a grin, slightly out of breath.

"jongho," yeosang bursts out, conflicted between telling him or not. he wants to bite his tongue and say something else, but he just can't force himself to do another day at the gym.

"yeah?" jongho sees the look on yeosang's face and he frowns in concern. it's late and the gym is almost empty by now, quiet and still. "hey, is everything okay?"

yeosang takes a deep breath. he knows he just has to say it. "look, i know you're probably going to hate me for saying this," he begins.

"that you're gay?" jongho interrupts, blinking at him.

"what?" yeosang's mouth gapes open, caught off guard. "no, that's not what i was going to say--"

"because i am."

yeosang doesn't say anything at all for a moment, narrowing his eyes in confusion. what's with jongho's sudden confession? not that yeosang's not happy to hear it, but it's supposed to be _his_ time to spill the truth.

"good," he says shortly.

jongho almost laughs. "good?"

"i mean, that's great, but you interrupted me when i was talking," yeosang rambles on. "anyway, i need to tell you--"

"that you hate the gym?" jongho fills in.

"no-- wait--" yeosang takes a few paces, runs a hand through his hair. "yes, actually. i hate the gym." he inhales deeply and yells, "i hate the gym!"

jongho starts laughing sheepishly. "i have to admit, i can kind of tell," he says. "i just didn't want to bring it up because i wanted to spend more time with you."

yeosang is a little lost for words. "alright, but if we're going to make this work, you're gonna have to stop interrupting me so much," is about all his brain can manage. _choi fricking jongho wants to spend time with me?!_

"i think i can manage that." jongho smiles, and yeosang goes weak at the knees. what is even happening right now? it all seems too surreal to be true.

"so... we can hang out... _not_ in the gym?" yeosang asks hopefully.

"we can hang out anywhere you like," jongho nods.

and so they do. they hang out in cafés and the university library, and eat lunch together and with jongho's friends, and watch movies in jongho's dorm, and yeosang lets him use his netflix account for it. sometimes they don't watch the movies, and they kiss instead, curled up on jongho's bed away from prying eyes. in public, they behave like friends, and no one questions it, but in private they casually make-out behind locked doors and yeosang falls asleep on jongho's bed. jongho's roommate doesn't say anything.

sometimes yeosang brings jongho lunch after a work out session, but apart from that he pretty much boycotts the gym altogether. those workout clothes are going to waste. yeosang considers giving them to wooyoung for yoga, but that would mean he'd have to admit to going to the gym in the first place.

⌛

"how much can you actually lift?" yeosang asks one night as they walk home together after getting drinks with jongho's friends. "like, could you lift me?"

"oh, easily," jongho boasts. "give me a real challenge."

"maybe i will." yeosang throws him a sideways glance. "come back to mine?" thinking with his dick and not with his brain, yeosang completely forgets about the existence of his curly-haired roommate.

so they walk back to yeosang's dorm under the yellow glow of streetlamps. jongho wants to hold yeosang's hand but anyone walking past might see, and this whole thing is supposed to be a secret anyway.

when yeosang opens the door to his dorm, however, he is in for a reality check. not only is wooyoung in there, but so is that _friend_ of his, and there are a lot of things going on that yeosang never wanted to see. primarily his life-long best friend all hot and bothered, wrapped around and under that long-haired idiot choi san.

wooyoung spots him standing in the doorway and his eyes go wide. san's still kissing his neck, skinny jeans only partway down his thighs, so he doesn't notice. "yeosang!" wooyoung blurts out, "you said you were going out tonight!"

san stops grinding against wooyoung for a second, glancing over his shoulder at the people in the doorway. it's like he's trying to calculate how long they're going to be there for, and whether it's worth pulling out and zipping up his jeans or not.

"i said i was going out for drinks," yeosang answers, not knowing whether to be angry or disgusted by what he's seeing. "you didn't say you were having anyone over!"

"neither did you!" wooyoung protests, fingers digging into san's back in an attempt to cover himself up with san as his human shield.

yeosang looks at jongho, who is staring at the scene in front of them. "that's got nothing to do with it!" he huffs, flapping his arms in frustration, until he eventually turns to leave. "fine, have fun then!" and then he slams the door.

it's unnerving how jongho looks both confused and slightly turned on.

"you think that's hot? fine, go and join them," yeosang snaps. "i'm sure they wouldn't mind."

he storms off down the stairs and jongho follows, trailing after him. "yeosang, wait!" he calls, "it's not like that. i know you're mad at your roommate, but you can't really blame him."

"yes i can," yeosang mutters darkly.

"hey, come on," jongho says, catching yeosang's wrist and pulling him towards him. "it's hard to be gay, okay? let him have his fun. besides, we can just go to my place."

yeosang looks up with a sharp glare. "are you serious? why didn't you suggest that before?"

jongho laughs and he lets go of yeosang as they leave his dorm building and head across the university campus. "i forgot," he explains, "but my roommate's staying over with a girl tonight."

"nice for some."

"it's also nice for others." jongho bumps his shoulder and smiles. "my dorm is free tonight, so you can stay as long as you like."

yeosang takes a deep breath and nods. "yeah, i'll be staying as long as that idiot is in my room fucking my best friend."

so they head back to jongho's dorm, and when they get there they leave the lights off. yeosang kicks off his shoes by the door and watches jongho remove his jacket, then his hoodie, and then his shirt. yeosang comes to the conclusion that he definitely has a muscle kink, and jongho's body is a complete turn on.

"still think you can lift me?" yeosang baits him quietly from the doorway.

before he can react, jongho has him thrown over one shoulder and then tosses him down onto the bed. stunned by such a display of masculinity, yeosang starts fumbling with the buttons on his own shirt, undoing them to grant jongho access. jongho climbs on top of him and kisses him hard, exploring every inch of yeosang's neck and shoulders with his mouth. yeosang runs his hands along jongho's torso, reminded of the first time they met. the muscles are hard and defined, and yeosang can't get enough.

"sure you wanna do this?" jongho asks, pausing with his fingers hooked around the top of yeosang's jeans. "we're both a little bit drunk, i think."

"i don't care," yeosang moans impatiently, "hurry up." he pulls jongho down to connect their lips again, hands travelling to the warm skin of his back.

"i'll take as long as i like," jongho taunts, making yeosang complain.

still, he stays over jongho's for the night, vulnerable yet satisfied under the tangled sheets.

⌛

as much as yeosang would like to stay at jongho's forever, he knows he has to face wooyoung eventually, and they'll have to talk about what happened that night. jongho convinces him to go back to his own dorm, and yeosang has a hard time saying no to jongho so he does.

yeosang half expects to walk in on wooyoung and san in bed together when he gets back to his dorm, but when he opens the door wooyoung is alone in a pair of pink pajamas, glasses on and reading a textbook.

"hey," yeosang says quietly.

wooyoung looks up and closes the book. "hey," he replies, in the same soft tone. "were you okay last night? did you have somewhere to stay?"

yeosang nods and lets the door shut behind him as he steps into the room. "i slept over at jongho's."

"jongho." wooyoung says the name like it's an unfamiliar word that he needs to look up the dictionary definition for. "since when are you close with him?"

"it's been a few weeks," yeosang tells him. he pauses, then sighs. "or maybe a month or two."

"he's the gym guy, right?" wooyoung puts the textbook aside and shuffles over to make room for yeosang. "i know you've been bullshitting me for a while now, 'sang."

yeosang perches on the edge of wooyoung's bed, leaving an uncomfortable gap between them. "i'm sorry," he murmurs. "i should've just come clean with you when i was buying all of those clothes online."

"you go to the gym?"

"i _went_ to the gym," yeosang corrects him. "i wanted to see jongho again, and everyone knows he goes there every day. i quit after two weeks though."

wooyoung laughs a little at that and inches closer to his roommate. "yeah, i didn't think you'd ever be able to keep that up," he admits. he pokes yeosang's non-existant abs, making him squirm.

"hey! i'm in great shape!" yeosang protests, flexing his arms to no avail. "anyway, can we talk about last night? i'm sorry i was rude."

"you're apologising first?" wooyoung scoffs in disbelief. "who are you and what have you done with kang yeosang?"

"shut up, i'm saying i'm sorry, okay?" yeosang grumbles. "i haven't exactly ever been nice about san."

"no, you haven't," wooyoung agrees, "but i should be the one saying sorry. i should've asked you first if it was okay for me to have him over."

"can we just call it quits and start over?" yeosang suggests. "we're both sorry. there. done. let's be friends again."

"we weren't ever _not friends_, stupid." wooyoung brings him in for a hug, wrapping his arms around yeosang's waist and resting his chin on his shoulder. "but yeah, let's be friends again."

yeosang breathes in the smell of wooyoung's apricot shampoo and sighs. "you've showered already?" he asks. "what time did that pathetic-- i mean, what time did san leave?"

wooyoung digs him in the ribs for that remark. "about an hour ago," he answers. "i didn't want him to be here when you got back in case you got pissed."

yeosang shrugs. "damn, maybe you're a better friend than i thought."

wooyoung laughs then, and everything is okay again. (yeosang still thinks san is an idiot though, and the two of them together turn into a pathetic sappy mess. but he doesn't tell wooyoung that of course.)

⌛

yeosang doesn't know how he got here.

(well, of course he knows. after wooyoung found out about jongho, he started using him as yeosang's weak spot. since yeosang still finds it extremely challenging to say no to anything jongho asks, wooyoung managed to persuade jongho into convincing yeosang to attend his yoga class. so here he is, in leggings again, in a yoga class with a bunch of freaks.)

"play nice, yeosang," wooyoung says from where he's stretching beside him.

"i haven't even said anything mean yet!" yeosang protests.

"i know what you're thinking." wooyoung throws him a look and starts helping san stretch in those annoying couple poses that people do. "you said you'd rather stick pins in your eyes than be here."

"yeah, i--" yeosang is quickly distracted by jongho's hands massaging his shoulders, and he doesn't argue with wooyoung any further.

"you know, i never even considered taking up yoga before," jongho remarks. "i was so focused on bulking up that i forgot how cool it is to be flexible."

"yoga isn't just about being flexible," says wooyoung. "it's about finding your inner peace."

"yeah, yeah, whatever." yeosang rolls his eyes at san who is helpfully sitting on wooyoung's back to help him stretch. "how long is this class gonna take?"

"hey, lighten up," jongho says with a grin. "some of this yoga stuff looks kind of fun!"

"you found a man with the right attitude," wooyoung tells yeosang approvingly.

"and _you _found a man with the right technique," san butts in, running a hand through wooyoung's blonde curls. 

"san, our relationship isn't just about sex," wooyoung mutters, giving him a sulky pout. 

"of course it isn't, baby," san assures him quickly, taking both of wooyoung's hands in his. he meets wooyoung's eyes and nods at him before adding, "but i am pretty good at it."

"i really don't want to know," yeosang declares.

but even though he pretends to be mad, he isn't really. san isn't quite as bad as he originally thought, and yeosang isn't really that opposed to him seeing wooyoung. (mostly because yeosang is usually too preoccupied with choi jongho to care about who wooyoung is sleeping with.) ever since he took that leap of faith to go to the gym, things changed.

but they changed for the better.

**Author's Note:**

> leave me a comment if you enjoyed! and let me know if you want to see more ateez content in future :)


End file.
